Chapter 10 : Purple - The Color of Life

Of a few things in life one can be certain. Death is one of the things that we may be certain about. Every person dies so do not let it surprise you.

The call from Memories came in the evening. They had mom's body and were prepared to perform the service for us whenever we wanted. We were all in agreement to get it over with as soon as possible so we scheduled it for the next day.

Although the traditional funeral service was held at church, we decided to make it private and do it by ourselves at the funeral home. Mom recommended doing it that way in her diary so our powers would not catch anyone's attention if they accidentally sparked. It was smart. A place with dead bodies and restless spiritual energy would definitely be a hot spot for our powers.

I, for one, was completely satisfied with the way our arrangement worked out. Faith did not say anything about it, but she was obviously relieved to be getting it over with. She asked me to stay awake with her until she fell asleep that night.

After Faith was asleep, I went back to my room to get some rest of my own. The past few days had been stressful to say the least. My room looked particularly dark that night, comforting in it's own strange way.

I stared at the ceiling counting sheep in my mind, but I knew that it would do me no good. Sleep was not going to be possible with so many things on it. I did not want to go downstairs either. There was no telling who or what would show up to greet me.

Somehow, I finally fell asleep. Maybe my body was too tired to not go to sleep. I was satisfied for whatever reason it happened.

The morning was welcomed by Aunt Carol's deluxe breakfast. She cooked more than normal, not that this would be a day to commemorate. We all ate and prepared for the time ahead of us.

Aunt Carol told the associate from Memories on the phone that we would be there at one o'clock. That would be plenty of time to prepare.

I spent the morning on the back porch, watching the light of the sun and the affect it had on the sky. I had never watched this strange occurrence before, but I recommend it to anyone with nothing to do. It was very enlightening.

The sky could do strange things under the correct influence. The sun's light colored the clouds with bright orange, yellow, and red colors. I was amazed by this. You could never really understand the grandiose of the heavens until you watched it in action.

Faith joined me after a few minutes. She had not gotten dressed yet either, but we had plenty of time to do that. She caught onto my drift and began to stare at the sky with me.

"It's cool; isn't it?" she asked after a moment.

"Yes, I have never noticed all of the colors."

"Well, light is made of all of the colors of the spectrum, you know. The colors are just best illustrated when being put on a palette."

"The palette being the clouds, right?"

"Yes, that is the idea," she let her gaze drop from the sky and flashed me a smile.

"Where did you learn that?"

"The spectrum part we studied in school. The cloud as a palette part I came up with myself."

It was a good concept. My sister was more inventive than I gave her credit for.

She leaned her head back and fell asleep in the porch chair. She needed a nap apparently so I left her in peace. Upon getting up to go back inside, I felt a headache coming on.

The best cure for a headache - Tylenol. I went to the medicine cabinet. I scanned the shelves for anything headache-related. We were clean out of Tylenol, but I took some convenience store brand pill that was supposed to be for a headache.

I figured that there would be no instant cure so I went to the living room and propped myself up in the comfortable rocking chair. I stayed still for an hour, but the pain did not go away. I even tried massaging my forehead with my hands, but it did not relieve the pressure as I had hoped it would.

"Headache?"

I opened my eyes and found Faith standing across the room looking at me. How did she always know what was wrong?

"Yes, it started a little while ago. I took something for it," I answered.

"Me too. That's why I went outside. I thought a nap would ease my mind, but that must not have anything to do with it. You might as well not try that."

"Thanks for the insight."

She left the room and headed for the stairs.

"I am going to get ready. You should do the same. It's almost noon."

Lucky she said that. My headache had almost caused me to forget about the service.

I followed her upstairs and went into my room. I found an old, black, dressy suit in my wardrobe. Luckily, it still fit me. I wet my hair and combed it away from my face. I usually let my hair go wild and unruly, but this was definitely a good time for a more sophisticated style.

I got bored waiting around in my room for everyone else so I went to check on Faith. She was powdering her face with some type of make-up. She really did not need to. She was pretty enough without it, but she had a self-confidence issue so it was probably for the better if I did not tell her that. She was wearing a purple dress, and she had her hair pulled up into a ball. The white ball reminded me of a bunny rabbit tail in a way.

"Looking good," I startled her because she jumped when I spoke.

"Thanks," she was hiding her surprise.

"Mom would say the same thing that I did."

"Thanks," she replied again, "but I am not competing in a beauty contest."

Could have fooled me with all of that make-up.

Faith rolled her eyes at me, but I noticed her start to smile as she turned back towards the mirror. She grabbed her purse and walked past me on the way out the door. I turned off the light in her room and followed her out.

If Faith was going out of her way to look good for mom, then what Aunt Carol was doing was plain ridiculous. She had gone out of her way to look like a circus act. Of course, I was not about to comment on her look. She must have assumed that she looked good; and maybe in some world, she did. I could not say the same for Uncle Chuck. He had not even tucked in his shirt until Aunt Carol yelled at him to do so.

Again, some things never change. We all stuffed ourselves together into the tight fit of mom's Focus and left home.

The drive was short. Memories was only a few miles from home, thank goodness. The tension in that car was as thick as I block of ice. We were not angry or upset at one another, but we were all hoping to get the day behind us.

I am not going to lie; the place was small compared to what I expected. I was not so much disappointed as I was surprised. After all of the great things I had heard about Memories, I had not suspected it to be smaller than our house.

We made our way under some low-lying trees on a tile path to the front door. I opened it and held it for everyone else. Only Faith showed any appreciation, and hers was only a smile and a nod.

We made our observations as we walked through the front door. Although it was small, it was a nice, cozy place. The temperature was moderate, and I could tell that the air was clean because it smelled like the hospital.

Only one associate was working at the desk. She and Aunt Carol talked about our visit while I continued to look the lobby over. The carpet was red, and it looked as if it had just been cleaned recently. The paint on the walls looked fresh. To be a funeral home, Memories was certainly a comforting stay so far. This was my first trip; and it was the most inviting one I had been to in awhile.

Aunt Carol settled things with the woman at the desk and led us down the hallway to our own private room. The hallway was as clean as the lobby had been. I assumed that they made it that way because it was a funeral home. Everything was designed to be inviting.

My headache had eased off while we were riding in the car, but it began to come back while walking down the hallway. Faith was squinting her eyes as she walked so she was having the same problem. She was just better at hiding it.

I could tell that it was intensifying as we got closer to the end of the hallway. My eyesight was becoming blurred, but I told myself that I would put up with it until our stay was over.

The room was small, but everything at the place was so I could not complain. A coffin sat uncovered in the center of it. I could barely make out any details about it except for the color because of my headache. The coffin was dark blue and wrapped in a black velvet quilt.

We approached it as a group, and Faith took my hand upon getting close to it. I was not sure if it was because of the headache or sheer nervousness. Either way, I was satisfied. I was dealing with both.

Inside the coffin, mom was dressed in a beautiful pink dress, which Aunt Carol had picked out for her. At least she had good enough taste to dress mom properly. She was wearing a white shade of make-up. To be honest, it made her look…dead.

"I don't think that we should say anything here," Aunt Carol spoke, "we can wait until we get to the cemetery so we can have our own private moment with her."

Good idea I thought to myself. Mom would have wanted each of us say our goodbyes privately. It was only fitting.

We looked her over for a moment before going back to the front desk and talking to the receptionist again. She told us to head for the cemetery, and she would send for some transportation of the coffin.

She did what she said that she would do. By the time we reached the cemetery around the corner, the hearse was making its rounds. It met us at the front gate where we parked.

The four of us made our way into the gates, my headache was splittingly dreadful there; and four young men carried the coffin. They led us to a hole that was just the perfect size for a coffin.

The men were very careful as they lowered the coffin into its hole. They covered it with dirt in an old-fashioned way - by hand.

"Do you need anything else?" one of the men who must have been the supervisor of the others asked.

"No thank you," Aunt Carol replied, "we will take it from here."

They left in their fancy hearse while we watched from inside the cemetery. After we were completely alone, the awkwardness began. None of us were sure of what to say. Aunt Carol got the message and led Uncle Chuck away by hand. Faith and I were alone with our mother for the last time, or so I thought.

Our goodbyes were simple; we both cried. Understandable, I was sure. Even if it wasn't, it was the only thing that I wanted to do. We stood together and held hands like that for awhile. I even forgot that I had a headache.

"We should come back later," Faith spoke.

I looked at her, somewhat confused.

"The headache is worse. We can learn something from being here. I can feel it."

Of course, she was not talking about mom. Silly me.

"Even if you are right, would it be worth it?" I asked.

"Yes. Besides, we can properly say goodbye to mom if we come back."

Fair enough. That made enough sense to convince me that it was a good idea.

She led me away so Aunt Carol and Uncle Chuck could say their goodbyes. We left with our aunt and uncle under the impression that we were satisfied.